12.20.09

Summary: Microsoft and Verizon gang up against Google, which is ironically working on Android for Verizon contracts

A FEW weeks ago it was confirmed that Microsoft had negotiated smearing and maybe excluding Google. Rupert Murdoch is known to have done that [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13], but there might be more to it.

Earlier this year Microsoft used its software, which it conveniently called FSF (Family Safety Filter)*, to block Google. This is the type of thing which ought to have Microsoft sued for more antitrust violations and now comes this:

Verizon has unilaterally updated user Storm 2 BlackBerries and other smartphones so that their browser search boxes can only be used with Microsoft Bing.

The move is part of the five-year search and advertising deal Verizon signed with Microsoft in January for a rumored $500m.

[...]

Previously, the search box – baked into the top of Verizon’s browser, above the url address bar – could be set to search Google, Wikipedia, and other sites.

Naturally, such sites can still be queried via the browser proper. But countless users are up-in-arms over the switch. A discussion thread dedicated to the change at CrackBerry, a popular BlackBerry user site, is now 36 pages long.

Microsoft is against choice. If the rumour is true, then Microsoft is even willing to pay $500,000,000 to remove all choices. How is this not anti-competitive? Accumulated below are references from the past 2 years. They show that Verizon has a mixed record when it comes to Free software, free speech, and of course net neutrality. █
____* Microsoft also uses the acronym RMS to describe user-hostile software.

The prospects for mobile open source just get brighter and brighter. Following months of rumors, Verizon Wireless has said that it will put substantial resources behind the open source Android platform, in a broad partnership with Google. Google and Verizon will work together to deliver new products and services that they say will arrive “in the hands of consumers quickly.” Notably, both companies have pledged to put unique applications onto handsets, including apps from their internal developers and others from third-party developers.

Verizon’s Motorola Droid is a brand-new phone today. Like many smartphones before it, the Droid has been rooted so that owners of the Android 2.0-based smartphone can install multitouch support (including pinch-to-zoom gestures), enhanced themes and other previously forbidden goodies.

Verizon and Google have entered into an agreement to jointly develop wireless devices based on Google’s open-source Android mobile platform.

During a teleconference today, Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam and Google CEO Eric Schmidt outlined the companies’ new strategic partnership that will develop Android-based smartphones, PDAs and netbooks, and deliver users with applications sold through the Android Market app store. Verizon says that it will have two Android-based handsets on the market by year-end with more to come by 2010.

Surprisingly, AT&T has reversed its position, and is now passionately supportive of net neutrality. What, you may ask, caused this dramatic shift? Why, Google, of course. AT&T filed a letter with the FCC today complaining that Google Voice blocks calls to certain rural locations. According to AT&T, blocking phone calls is a violation of net neutrality — dictionary, anyone? — and thus Google is in violation of the rules that aren’t rules which AT&T vehemently despised but now passionately adores.

“We are concerned, however, that the FCC appears ready to extend the entire array of Net neutrality requirements to what is perhaps the most competitive consumer market in America: wireless services,” he said.

He argues that wireless networks differ from wireline broadband networks because bandwidth is more limited on a wireless network. And he said that imposing new rules on how carriers operate their wireless networks would stifle investment.

The company that operates America’s largest wireless telecommunications network now considers itself a friend of Android. Google and Verizon Wireless have sealed a deal that’ll see the two working together on mobile products and services.

Verizon Business rolled out its Computing as a Service (CaaS) product today, which brings the big carrier directly into the cloud marketplace. While the cloud is a compute infrastructure, it still needs an operating system and for Verizon that means both Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Microsoft Windows.

When we first heard about the MiFi last December, Novatel pointed out that the router is actually a tiny Linux PC, capable of running its own software. The router could check e-mail and store messages on a memory card without a PC, in theory. But Verizon’s version looks like it’s just a Wi-Fi router – for now, at least.

I’m reviewing the somewhat anachronistic Verizon Hub connected phone. Now that I’ve seen its future—an open platform built on Linux with sleek hardware from this decade, like capacitive touchscreens—it’s way more exciting.

Verizon Wireless launched a VOIP-based, Linux-powered home phone on Friday, the Verizon Hub. The Hub plugs into a home broadband line and acts as a family calendar, limited Web browser, messaging center, digital picture frame and, of course, a phone.

Verizon Wireless announced a VoIP touchscreen phone that incorporates a digital picture frame (DPF) capability and can send navigation instructions to Verizon mobile phones. According to one report, the Verizon Hub (pictured) is based on OpenPeak’s OpenFrame phone, which is said to run Linux.

I just got out of a Q&A session with Verizon Communications CEO Denny Strigl and being an open source guy I asked Strigl about open source. Specifically I asked what role does open source play at Verizon now, especially in light of the recent SFLC lawsuit against Verizon on GPL infringement.

Strigl looked at me with a blank face and asked me to repeat my question. He was completely clueless.

He then asked one of his PR people to answer, and they too were clueless.

Cuomo claimed that his office found child porn on 88 newsgroups–out of roughly 100,000 newsgroups that exist. In a press release, he took credit for the companies’ blunderbuss-style newsgroup removal by saying: “We are attacking this problem by working with Internet service providers…I commend the companies that have stepped up today to embrace a new standard of responsibility, which should serve as a model for the entire industry.”

[...]

What this means in practice is that, thanks to the New York state attorney general, Verizon customers will lose out on innocent discussions. Verizon is retaining only eight newsgroup hierarchies, even though over 1,000 hierarchies exist.

Verizon Wireless has chosen Linux as its mobile phone “platform of choice,” it said. Starting with feature phones in 2009, followed by iPhone competitors, Verizon will offer Linux phones compliant with specifications from the Linux Mobile Foundation (LiMo), an industry group it joined today, along with seven other companies.

“I’m a little surprised by it, to tell you the truth,” Tolliver said in a recent interview. Palamida is a supplier of risk management software for managing an enterprise’s software assets. Its auditing system scans code and identifies its origins, from open source projects or other known sources.

“Usually these issues can be resolved before pretty promptly,” he added. But Verizon had no response to the center when it sent a letter notifying Verizon of a violation, and it’s had no response since the center filed a suit Dec. 7 in federal District Court for the Southern District of New York.

For the broadband installation, one thing I really didn’t want was to have Verizon install a bunch of junk software on my computer. So when it was time to set up the connection I offered the tech a linux laptop. He said, “Linux, what’s that?” I said, let’s try it anyway. The normal procedure is to connect your computer, go to a special website and download a bunch of software, then set up your account username and password and agree to a terms of service. Of course, going to the special website we get the message, “your operating system is not supported”. I asked the tech to call his support, who laughed when he heard the word linux, but then relented and gave us an extra special website with login and password where we could set everything up without downloading software. Yay! The TV and phone setup were completely straightforward.

Verizon has been supporting the linux desktop for Red Hat for various applications for a while now. It wasn’t until recently that with the help of some unpaid employees that they got it working for Ubuntu.

The same two principal developers already successfully sued Monsoon Media, and they have litigation pending against Xterasys Corporation and High-Gain Antennas, LLC. Here is the press release from the Software Freedom Law Center on the Verizon suit, followed by the complaint as text.

According to the SFLC, Verizon can be added to the list of companies infringing on the GPL. They filed a lawsuit in New York yesterday (pdf) alleging that the company is handing out routers using the GPL’d software ‘BusyBox’ without accompanying source code.

Verizon Communications Inc.’s plan to open its wireless network to any devices, not just Verizon cell phones, is partly motivated by a desire to cut costs, the company’s chief operating officer said Wednesday.

Sun’s Sun Ray is unique among thin clients, many of which still use some kind of embedded Windows or Linux operating system, even though the applications are shifted to servers.

[...]

With about 5,000 Sun Ray terminals installed at three Western call centers, and a fourth in progress, Verizon has seen a 60% to 70% drop in desktop problems and a 30% decline in electrical use at each center.

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Staff of the EPO is given yet more reasons to protest tomorrow at the British Consulate, for the so-called 'President' of the EPO reminds everyone of the very raison d'être for the protest -- a vain disregard for the rule of law

The European Patent Office (EPO) President, Benoît Battistelli, reportedly started threatening -- as before -- staff that decides to exercise the right to assemble and protest against abuses, including the abuses of President Battistelli himself

A protest in Munich in less than 6 days will target Mr. Sean Dennehey, who has helped Battistelli cover up his abuses and crush legitimate critics, whom he deemed illegal opposition as if the EPO is an authoritarian regime as opposed to a public service which taxpayers are reluctantly (but forcibly) funding